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Waldo Hunt
Waldo Henley Hunt (November 28, 1920 – November 6, 2009)[1] was a prolific producer of pop-up books, having nearly singlehandedly revived the genre in the post-war era. BiographyHis company, Intervisual Books (also known as Intervisual Communications), created pop-up books of all varieties—from The Human Body to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski, a pop-up book created by Hunt, won the 1980 Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration of children's books. Born in Chicago, Hunt grew up in San Mateo, California.[2] He terminated his college career at Stanford University early to serve in World War II. After his Army stint, Hunt began a career in advertising, starting his own agency.[1] He exited the advertising business to found a graphic design firm. At the new firm, Graphics International, he developed an interest in pop-up design, initially focused on pop-up advertisements for magazines.[1] Ib Penick was a business partner and paper engineer at Graphics International.[3] In a 2002 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hunt said, "I knew I'd found the magic key. No one was doing pop-ups in this country. No one could afford to make them here. They had to be done by hand, and labor was too expensive."[2] In 1965, Hunt published a book called Bennett Cerf's Pop-Up Riddles, which was sold as a product promotion for $1.00 and two Maxwell House coffee labels.[4] Cerf was the president of Random House at the time, and by 1967, Hunt had 30 pop-up books in production for Random House.[2] In the late 1960s, Hallmark bought Graphics International, and Hunt next founded Intervisual Books to produce pop-up and movable books. Hunt became known as the "King of the Pop-Ups,"[4] and was considered by many to be "the father of the modern pop-up book industry" for his work in pioneering pop-up interactive books.[5] His companies dominated the pop-up book business from the 1960s until the late 1990s.[5] By 1996, Intervisual Books had published 1,000 movable books[2] and pop-up advertisements.[6] Among his books, Hunt's personal favorites included best-sellers, The Human Body by David Pelham, Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski with paper engineering by Tor Lokvig, and How Many Bugs in a Box? by David A. Carter.[2] In its obituary of Hunt, The New York Times wrote that Hunt was "almost single-handedly responsible" for the revival of the pop-up book in the United States and noted:
Cynthia Burlingham, director of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum, said of Hunt, "He was such an important publisher of pop-up books who really advanced them technically. The pop-up designers who worked for him were amazing creative engineers."[2] In addition to producing pop-up works, he was a significant collector of pop-up and other movable books, amassing 4,000 antique and contemporary titles.[2] Hunt's extensive collection was the basis for a 2002 exhibit, Pop Up! 500 Years of Movable Books, at the Los Angeles Central Library.[1] Hunt lived for 30 years in Encino, Los Angeles, California.[2] He retired in 2002 and moved to Springville, California.[2] He died from congestive heart failure at age 88. AwardsIn 2000, the Movable Book Society honored Hunt with the MBS Lifetime Achievement Award.[7] References
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